When Edgar Wright’s new film The World’s End holds its world premiere tonight in London’s Leicester Square you can expect its star-studded cast to line the red carpet, but also in attendance will be a gaggle of lesser-known faces who inspired the film’s events.

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The final instalment of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Wright’s Cornetto trilogy sees a gang of 40-somethings return to their sleepy hometown of Newton Haven to recreate the epic 12-stop pub crawl they failed to complete as teenagers, with the goal of reaching final boozer, The World’s End. But their evening takes an apocalyptic turn when the old friends find themselves battling against a mystery alien force taking over the town’s inhabitants.

Pegg and Frost star alongside Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan as the estranged pals but Wright revealed on Tuesday that he had also invited the schoolfriends who had inspired the plot to tonight’s event.

“The pub crawl idea is something that had been gnawing at me for a long time,” he revealed. “I had tried to do it in my home town in Somerset – which is actually the place where we shot Hot Fuzz – and had failed miserably at the age of 19. It was a particularly memorable night even though I’d only got through six of the 15 pubs.

“I’ve invited all of the people who came on the pub crawl with me to the premiere. Two of them I haven’t seen in over 10 years. It’s going to be amazing.”

Wright also went on to recall taking Pegg and Frost on a second attempt at the elusive pub crawl before they filmed Shaun of the Dead in 2004. “What was interesting was that second time around I was aware how pathetic it was trying to recapture this night from when I was a teenager. It struck me as something that was very rich for a character comedy.”